This Day in History Thread.........

[King Shizzo]

Sep 29, 1982


Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills six
 


Flight attendant Paula Prince buys a bottle of cyanide-laced Tylenol. Prince was found dead on October 1, becoming the final victim of a mysterious ailment in Chicago, Illinois. Over the previous 24 hours, six other people had suddenly died of unknown causes in northwest Chicago. After Prince's death, Richard Keyworth and Philip Cappitelli, firefighters in the Windy City, realized that all seven victims had ingested Extra-Strength Tylenol prior to becoming ill. Further investigation revealed that several bottles of the Tylenol capsules had been poisoned with cyanide.

Mary Ann Kellerman, a seventh grader, was the first to die after ingesting the over-the-counter pain reliever. The next victim, Adam Janus, ended up in the emergency room in critical condition. After visiting his older brother in the hospital, Stanley Janus went back to Adam's house with his wife, Theresa. To alleviate their stress-induced headaches, they both took capsules from the open Tylenol bottle that was sitting on the counter. They too were poisoned--Stanley died and Theresa lapsed into a coma. That same day, Mary Reiner, who had a headache after giving birth, took the tainted pills. A woman named Mary McFarland was also poisoned.

While bottles of Extra-Strength Tylenol were recalled nationwide, the only contaminated capsules were found in the Chicago area. The culprit was never caught, but the mass murder led to new tamper-proof medicine containers. It also led to a string of copycat crimes, as others sought to blackmail companies with alleged poisoning schemes, most of which proved to be false alarms.

[King Shizzo]

Sep 30, 1955


James Dean dies in car accident
   
 

At 5:45 PM on this day in 1955, 24-year-old actor James Dean is killed in Cholame, California, when the Porsche he is driving hits a Ford Tudor sedan at an intersection. The driver of the other car, 23-year-old California Polytechnic State University student Donald Turnupseed, was dazed but mostly uninjured; Dean’s passenger, German Porsche mechanic Rolf Wütherich was badly injured but survived. Only one of Dean’s movies, “East of Eden,” had been released at the time of his death (“Rebel Without a Cause” and “Giant” opened shortly afterward), but he was already on his way to superstardom--and the crash made him a legend.

James Dean loved racing cars, and in fact he and his brand-new, $7000 Porsche Spyder convertible were on their way to a race in Salinas, 90 miles south of San Francisco. Witnesses maintained that Dean hadn’t been speeding at the time of the accident--in fact, Turnupseed had made a left turn right into the Spyder’s path--but some people point out that he must have been driving awfully fast: He’d gotten a speeding ticket in Bakersfield, 150 miles from the crash site, at 3:30 p.m. and then had stopped at a diner for a Coke, which meant that he’d covered quite a distance in a relatively short period of time. Still, the gathering twilight and the glare from the setting sun would have made it impossible for Turnupseed to see the Porsche coming no matter how fast it was going. 

Rumor has it that Dean’s car, which he’d nicknamed the Little Bastard, was cursed. After the accident, the car rolled off the back of a truck and crushed the legs of a mechanic standing nearby. Later, after a used-car dealer sold its parts to buyers all over the country, the strange incidents multiplied: The car’s engine, transmission and tires were all transplanted into cars that were subsequently involved in deadly crashes, and a truck carrying the Spyder’s chassis to a highway-safety exhibition skidded off the road, killing its driver. The remains of the car vanished from the scene of that accident and haven’t been seen since.

Wütherich, whose feelings of guilt after the car accident never abated, tried to commit suicide twice during the 1960s--and in 1967, he stabbed his wife 14 times with a kitchen knife in a failed murder/suicide--and he died in a drunk-driving accident in 1981. Turnupseed died of lung cancer in 1981.

[King Shizzo]

If anyone bothered to read this forum I would troll you so hard you would cry... again 

 

[Archer77]

I read this thread everyday.  History is my thing. 

[Raymondo]

I read this thread everyday.  History is my thing. 

I'm afraid one person is not enough for me to drive shizzo into an alcoholic breakdown.

[King Shizzo]

Oct 1, 1918

Lawrence of Arabia captures Damascus
   
 

A combined Arab and British force captures Damascus from the Turks during World War I, completing the liberation of Arabia. An instrumental commander in the Allied campaign was T.E. Lawrence, a legendary British soldier known as Lawrence of Arabia.

Lawrence, an Oxford-educated Arabist born in Tremadoc, Wales, began working for the British army as an intelligence officer in Egypt in 1914. He spent more than a year in Cairo, processing intelligence information. In 1916, he accompanied a British diplomat to Arabia, where Hussein ibn Ali, the emir of Mecca, had proclaimed a revolt against Turkish rule. Lawrence convinced his superiors to aid Hussein's rebellion, and he was sent to join the Arabian army of Hussein's son Faisal as a liaison officer.

Under Lawrence's guidance, the Arabians launched an effective guerrilla war against the Turkish lines. He proved a gifted military strategist and was greatly admired by the Bedouin people of Arabia. In July 1917, Arabian forces captured Aqaba near the Sinai and joined the British march on Jerusalem. Lawrence was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In November, he was captured by the Turks while reconnoitering behind enemy lines in Arab dress and was tortured and sexually abused before escaping. He rejoined his army, which slowly worked its way north to Damascus. The Syrian capital fell on October 1, 1918.

Arabia was liberated, but Lawrence's hope that the peninsula would be united as a single nation was dashed when Arabian factionalism came to the fore after Damascus. Lawrence, exhausted and disillusioned, left for England. Feeling that Britain had exacerbated the rivalries between the Arabian groups, he appeared before King George V and politely refused the medals offered to him.

After the war, he lobbied hard for independence for Arab countries and appeared at the Paris peace conference in Arab robes. He later wrote a monumental war memoir, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and enlisted in the Royal Air Force (RAF) under an assumed name to escape his fame and acquire material for a new book. Discharged from the RAF in 1935, he was fatally injured in a motorcycle accident a few months later

[Teutonic Knight]

Moses was still wondering around Sinai desert (no GPS in those days).

[King Shizzo]

Oct 2, 1836


Darwin returns to England
   
 

The British naturalist Charles Darwin returns to Falmouth, England, aboard the HMS Beagle, ending a five-year surveying expedition of the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Visiting such diverse places as Brazil, the Galapagos Islands, and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, and geology of many lands. This information proved invaluable in the development of his theory of evolution, first put forth in his groundbreaking scientific work of 1859, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

Darwin's theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called "natural selection." In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species. His Origin of Species, the first significant work on the theory of evolution, was greeted with great interest in the scientific world but was attacked by religious leaders for its contradiction of the biblical account of creation

[Teutonic Knight]

Moses gang still in desert ......39 years & 364 days to go !

[Gonuclear]

Oct 2, 1836


Darwin returns to England
   
 

The British naturalist Charles Darwin returns to Falmouth, England, aboard the HMS Beagle, ending a five-year surveying expedition of the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Visiting such diverse places as Brazil, the Galapagos Islands, and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, and geology of many lands. This information proved invaluable in the development of his theory of evolution, first put forth in his groundbreaking scientific work of 1859, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

Darwin's theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called "natural selection." In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species. His Origin of Species, the first significant work on the theory of evolution, was greeted with great interest in the scientific world but was attacked by religious leaders for its contradiction of the biblical account of creation

Darwin neither mentioned nor knew about genes and "the overall genetic makeup" of anything.  The word "genetics" wasn't even coined until 1905 (Darwin died in 1882).

You might want to check the quality and accuracy of the sources you cut and paste from.

[King Shizzo]

Awesome bigmc!!!!! Way to get involved. 

[King Shizzo]

Oct 3, 1863


Lincoln proclaims official Thanksgiving holiday
   
 

On this day in 1863, expressing gratitude for a pivotal Union Army victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln announces that the nation will celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, 1863.

The speech, which was actually written by Secretary of State William Seward, declared that the fourth Thursday of every November thereafter would be considered an official U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. This announcement harkened back to when George Washington was in his first term as the first president in 1789 and the young American nation had only a few years earlier emerged from the American Revolution. At that time, George Washington called for an official celebratory "day of public thanksgiving and prayer." While Congress overwhelmingly agreed to Washington's suggestion, the holiday did not yet become an annual event.

Thomas Jefferson, the third president, felt that public demonstrations of piety to a higher power, like that celebrated at Thanksgiving, were inappropriate in a nation based in part on the separation of church and state. Subsequent presidents agreed with him. In fact, no official Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by any president between 1815 and the day Lincoln took the opportunity to thank the Union Army and God for a shift in the country's fortunes on this day in 1863.

The fourth Thursday of November remained the annual day of Thanksgiving from 1863 until 1939. Then, at the tail-end of the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, hoping to boost the economy by providing shoppers and merchants a few extra days to conduct business between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, moved Thanksgiving to November's third Thursday. In 1941, however, Roosevelt bowed to Congress' insistence that the fourth Thursday of November be re-set permanently, without alteration, as the official Thanksgiving holiday.

[bigmc]

Oct 3, 1863


Lincoln proclaims official Thanksgiving holiday
   
 

On this day in 1863, expressing gratitude for a pivotal Union Army victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln announces that the nation will celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, 1863.

The speech, which was actually written by Secretary of State William Seward, declared that the fourth Thursday of every November thereafter would be considered an official U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. This announcement harkened back to when George Washington was in his first term as the first president in 1789 and the young American nation had only a few years earlier emerged from the American Revolution. At that time, George Washington called for an official celebratory "day of public thanksgiving and prayer." While Congress overwhelmingly agreed to Washington's suggestion, the holiday did not yet become an annual event.

Thomas Jefferson, the third president, felt that public demonstrations of piety to a higher power, like that celebrated at Thanksgiving, were inappropriate in a nation based in part on the separation of church and state. Subsequent presidents agreed with him. In fact, no official Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by any president between 1815 and the day Lincoln took the opportunity to thank the Union Army and God for a shift in the country's fortunes on this day in 1863.

The fourth Thursday of November remained the annual day of Thanksgiving from 1863 until 1939. Then, at the tail-end of the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, hoping to boost the economy by providing shoppers and merchants a few extra days to conduct business between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, moved Thanksgiving to November's third Thursday. In 1941, however, Roosevelt bowed to Congress' insistence that the fourth Thursday of November be re-set permanently, without alteration, as the official Thanksgiving holiday.

cool story bro

[a_ahmed]

Yesterday Salahuddin Al-Ayubbi liberated Jerusalem from a filthy 80 year rule of Crusaders.

[King Shizzo]

Yesterday Salahuddin Al-Ayubbi liberated Jerusalem from a filthy 80 year rule of Crusaders.

Do you have anymore info on the story? Many of us would love to read it.  The Crusades were a pivotal time in world history.

[King Shizzo]

Oct 4, 2011


Man who served 25 years for murder exonerated by DNA
 


On this day in 2011, Michael Morton, who spent 25 years in prison for his wife’s murder, is released after DNA evidence implicates another man in the crime. The prosecutor in the case later was accused of withholding evidence indicating that Morton was innocent.

On the afternoon of August 13, 1986, a neighbor found 31-year-old Christine Morton beaten to death in her bed in the Williamson County, Texas, home (near Austin) she shared with Michael, a grocery store manager, and their 3-year-old son. Six weeks later, Morton, who had no criminal record or history of violence, was arrested for Christine’s murder.  At trial, the prosecution contended Morton had slain his wife of seven years after she refused to have sex with him on the night of August 12, his 32nd birthday. Morton maintained he had nothing to do with his wife’s death and said an intruder must have killed her after he left for work early on the morning of August 13. No witnesses or physical evidence linked Morton to the crime; nevertheless, he was convicted on February 17, 1987, and sentenced to life behind bars.

In 2005, Morton’s defense team asked the state to test DNA on a variety of items, including a blood-stained bandanna found by police the day after the murder at an abandoned construction site close to the Morton home. The Williamson County district attorney successfully blocked all requests for testing until 2010, when a Texas appeals court ordered that testing on the bandana take place. In the summer of 2011, the test results revealed the bandana contained Christine Morton’s blood and hair, along with the DNA of another man, Mark Alan Norwood, a felon with a long criminal record who worked in the Austin area as a carpet layer at the time of the murder.

Michael Morton was released from prison on October 4, 2011, and officially exonerated in December of that year. A month after Morton was freed, Norwood, 57, was arrested for Christine Morton's murder. Based on DNA evidence, Norwood later was indicted for killing a second woman, Debra Baker, whose 1988 murder in Austin had remained unsolved. Like Morton, Baker was bludgeoned to death in her bed. She lived just blocks from Norwood at the time of her murder.

In October 2012, after a nearly yearlong investigation, the State Bar of Texas filed a disciplinary petition against Ken Anderson, the prosecutor in the Morton case and now a Texas district judge, alleging he withheld various pieces of evidence from Morton’s attorneys, including a transcript of an August 1986 taped interview between the case’s lead investigator and Morton’s mother-in-law, in which she stated that Morton’s 3-year-old son had told her in detail about witnessing his mother’s murder and said his father was not home at the time.

[King Shizzo]

Oct 5, 1892


The Dalton gang performs their last robbery attempt
   
 

The Dalton gang attempts to rob two banks simultaneously in Coffeyville, Kansas, but meets resistance from townspeople, who wind up killing four of the five bandits. Emmett Dalton, the sole survivor, returned to the site of the crime nearly 40 years later and offered a caution to would-be thieves: "The biggest fool on earth is the one who thinks he can beat the law, that crime can be made to pay. It never paid and it never will and that was the one big lesson of the Coffeyville raid."

Grat, Bob, and Emmett Dalton turned to a life of crime when they became bored with their other career possibilities on the Western frontier. They started with cattle rustling and moved on to armed robbery in 1890. Their younger brother, Bill, soon joined their endeavors. On February 6, 1891, Bob, Grat, and Bill tried to rob a Southern Pacific train heading to Los Angeles, California. Despite shooting and wounding a guard, the brothers didn't score any money, and Bill and Grat were captured.

Although Bill managed to escape the charges, Grat received a 20-year sentence. However, he escaped from the train that was taking him to prison, and all the brothers headed back to the Midwest together, where they recruited the best gunmen they could find and began an impressive crime spree. They got $14,000 from a train robbery in Oklahoma and then $19,000 from a bank.

Eugenia Moore, who was engaged to Bob, was in charge of scouting out the best robbery targets for the gang. She was adept at chatting with bankers and railroad workers in order to find out when large sums of money were to be transported. For over a year, the Dalton gang completed a streak of successful robberies that were designed to bring them enough money to retire. However, Eugenia died of cancer, and the gang soon made a huge blunder. Emmett, Grat, Bob, Dick Broadwell, and Bill Power rode into Coffeyville, Kansas, wearing false beards and carrying rifles. As Grat, Broadwell, and Power walked into the Condon Bank and Bob and Emmett entered the First National Bank, one of town's citizens recognized the Daltons and quickly called the town's men to action. (Some sources report that Moore was still alive when the gang went to Coffeyville; others report that there were in fact six robbers that day, not five, and that Moore was the sixth.)

As the gang was about to make their getaway, a throng of armed townsfolk surprised them. The five thieves shot their way to the alley where their horses were waiting and tried to defend themselves, but they were greatly outnumbered. In the epic gunfight that ensued, all five men were shot, but not before killing a number of the makeshift vigilantes, many of whom had been armed for the fight by a local hardware store. Dick Broadwell made it out of the alley on his horse but died a few miles outside of town.

Emmett Dalton, who had been shot more than 20 times, was the only one that managed to survive. He received a life sentence for the murder of the men who tried to stop him but was released a mere 15 years later. He lived a peaceful and law-abiding life until his death in 1937. In 1894, law enforcement officials shot his younger brother Bill, who was not at the fateful Coffeyville robbery, as he tried to escape deputy marshals who were trying to arrest him.

[King Shizzo]

Oct 6, 1981


The president of Egypt is assassinated
 


Islamic extremists assassinate Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt, as he reviews troops on the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. Led by Khaled el Islambouli, a lieutenant in the Egyptian army with connections to the terrorist group Takfir Wal-Hajira, the terrorists, all wearing army uniforms, stopped in front of the reviewing stand and fired shots and threw grenades into a crowd of Egyptian government officials. Sadat, who was shot four times, died two hours later. Ten other people also died in the attack.

Despite Sadat's incredible public service record for Egypt (he was instrumental in winning the nation its independence and democratizing it), his controversial peace negotiation with Israel in 1977-78, for which he and Menachem Begin won the Nobel Peace Prize, made him a target of Islamic extremists across the Middle East. Sadat had also angered many by allowing the ailing Shah of Iran to die in Egypt rather than be returned to Iran to stand trial for his crimes against the country.

Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffi, who sponsored Takfir Wal-Hajira, had engineered his own unsuccessful attempt on Sadat's life in 1980. Despite the well-known threats on his life, Sadat did not withdraw from the public eye, believing it was important to the country's well-being that he be open and available.

Before executing their plan, Islambouli's team of assassins took hits of hashish to honor a long-standing Middle Eastern tradition. As their vehicle passed the reviewing stand, they jumped out and started firing. Vice President Hosni Mubarak was sitting near Sadat but managed to survive the attack. Taking over the country when Sadat died, Mubarak arrested hundreds of people suspected to have participated in the conspiracy to kill Sadat.

Eventually, charges were brought against 25 men, who went to trial in November. Many of those charged were unrepentant and proudly admitted their involvement. Islambouli and four others were executed, while 17 others were sentenced to prison time.

[King Shizzo]

Oct 7, 2003


Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes California governor
   
 

On this day in 2003, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is elected governor of California, the most populous state in the nation with the world's fifth-largest economy. Despite his inexperience, Schwarzenegger came out on top in the 11-week campaign to replace Gray Davis, who had earlier become the first United States governor to be recalled by the people since 1921. Schwarzenegger was one of 135 candidates on the ballot, which included career politicians, other actors, and one adult-film star.

Born in Thal, Austria, on July 30, 1947, Arnold Schwarzenegger began body-building as a teenager. He won the first of four "Mr. Universe" body-building championships at the age of 20, and moved to the United States in 1968. He also went on to win a then-record seven "Mr. Olympia" championships, securing his reputation as a body-building legend, and soon began appearing in films. Schwarzenegger first attracted mainstream public attention for a Golden Globe®-winning performance in Stay Hungry (1976) and his appearance in the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron. At the same time, he was working on a B.A. at the University of Wisconsin, from which he graduated in 1979.

Schwarzenegger's film career took off after his starring turn in 1982's Conan the Barbarian. In 1983, he became a U.S. citizen; the next year he made his most famous film, The Terminator, directed by James Cameron. Although his acting talent is probably aptly described as limited, Schwarzenegger went on to become one of the most sought-after action-film stars of the 1980s and early 1990s and enjoyed an extremely lucrative career. The actor's romantic life also captured the attention of the American public: he married television journalist and lifelong Democrat Maria Shriver, niece of the late President John F. Kennedy, in 1986.

With his film career beginning to stagnate, Schwarzenegger, a staunch supporter of the Republican party who had long been thought to harbor political aspirations, announced his candidacy for governor of California during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Aside from his well-known stint serving as chairman of the President s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under President George H.W. Bush, Schwarzenegger had little political experience. His campaign, which featured his use of myriad one-liners well-known from his movie career, was dogged by criticism of his use of anabolic steroids, as well as allegations of sexual misconduct and racism. Still, Schwarzenegger was able to parlay his celebrity into a win, appealing to weary California voters with talk of reform. He beat his closest challenger, the Democratic lieutenant governor Cruz Bustamante, by more than 1 million votes.

[King Shizzo]

Oct 8, 1871


Great Chicago Fire begins
   
 

On this day in 1871, flames spark in the Chicago barn of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary, igniting a two-day blaze that kills between 200 and 300 people, destroys 17,450 buildings, leaves 100,000 homeless and causes an estimated $200 million (in 1871 dollars; $3 billion in 2007 dollars) in damages. Legend has it that a cow kicked over a lantern in the O'Leary barn and started the fire, but other theories hold that humans or even a comet may have been responsible for the event that left four square miles of the Windy City, including its business district, in ruins. Dry weather and an abundance of wooden buildings, streets and sidewalks made Chicago vulnerable to fire. The city averaged two fires per day in 1870; there were 20 fires throughout Chicago the week before the Great Fire of 1871.

Despite the fire's devastation, much of Chicago's physical infrastructure, including its water, sewage and transportation systems, remained intact. Reconstruction efforts began quickly and spurred great economic development and population growth, as architects laid the foundation for a modern city featuring the world's first skyscrapers. At the time of the fire, Chicago's population was approximately 324,000; within nine years, there were 500,000 Chicagoans. By 1893, the city was a major economic and transportation hub with an estimated population of 1.5 million. That same year, Chicago was chosen to host the World's Columbian Exposition, a major tourist attraction visited by 27.5 million people, or approximately half the U.S. population at the time.

In 1997, the Chicago City Council exonerated Mrs. O'Leary and her cow. She turned into a recluse after the fire, and died in 1895.

[Powerlift66]

Oct 8, 1934 - Bruno Hauptmann was indicted for the murder of the infant son of Charles A. Lindbergh.

[King Shizzo]

Oct 9, 1967

Che Guevara is executed
   
 

On this day in 1967, socialist revolutionary and guerilla leader Che Guevara, age 39, is killed by the Bolivian army. The U.S.-military-backed Bolivian forces captured Guevara on October 8 while battling his band of guerillas in Bolivia and assassinated him the following day. His hands were cut off as proof of death and his body was buried in an unmarked grave. In 1997, Guevara's remains were found and sent back to Cuba, where they were reburied in a ceremony attended by President Fidel Castro and thousands of Cubans.

Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna was born to a well-off family in Argentina in 1928. While studying medicine at the University of Buenos Aires, he took time off to travel around South America on a motorcycle; during this time, he witnessed the poverty and oppression of the lower classes. He received a medical degree in 1953 and continued his travels around Latin America, becoming involved with left-wing organizations. In the mid 1950s, Guevara met up with Fidel Castro and his group of exiled revolutionaries in Mexico. Guevara played a key role in Castro's seizure of power from Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and later served as Castro's right-hand man and minister of industry. Guevara strongly opposed U.S. domination in Latin America and advocated peasant-based revolutions to combat social injustice in Third World countries. Castro later described him as "an artist of revolutionary warfare."

Guevara resigned—some say he was dismissed—from his Cuban government post in April 1965, possibly over differences with Castro about the nation’s economic and foreign policies. Guevara then disappeared from Cuba, traveled to Africa and eventually resurfaced in Bolivia, where he was killed. Following his death, Guevara achieved hero status among people around the world as a symbol of anti-imperialism and revolution. A 1960 photo taken by Alberto Korda of Guevara in a beret became iconic and has since appeared on countless posters and T-shirts. However, not everyone considers Guevara a hero: He is accused, among other things, of ordering the deaths of hundreds of people in Cuban prisons during the revolution.

[King Shizzo]

Oct 10, 1877


Custer's funeral is held at West Point
   
 

On this day in 1877, the U.S. Army holds a West Point funeral with full military honors for Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Killed the previous year in Montana by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Custer's body had been returned to the East for burial on the grounds of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, where Custer had graduated in 1861-at the bottom of his class.

Even before the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Custer had won national fame as a bold-and some said foolhardy-Civil War commander who eventually became the youngest major general in the U.S. Army. A handsome man, famous for his long blond hair (though he cut it short while in the field), Custer, even after the Civil War, continued to attract the appreciative attention of newspapers and the nation as a lieutenant colonel in the 7th Cavalry, a unit recently created to fight in the western Indian wars. Reports that Custer treated deserters of the 7th with unnecessary cruelty and overworked his soldiers led to a court-martial and conviction in 1867. But Custer redeemed himself, at least in the eyes of some, with his subsequent attack on a winter camp of Cheyenne in on the Washita River. Others, though, faulted Custer for attacking a peaceful band of Cheyenne and leaving behind some of his men when he withdrew from the battle under cover of night.

Though Custer was controversial in his day, his spectacular death at the Little Big Horn transformed him into a beloved martyr in the eyes of many Americans, especially those who were calling for wholesale war against the Indians. Some newspapers began to refer to Custer as the "American Murat," a reference to a famous martyr of the French Revolution, and they called for decisive retaliation against the "treacherous Indians" who had murdered the golden-haired general. Others refused to believe that Custer's own tactical mistakes could alone explain the disaster at Little Big Horn, and they instead sought to place the blame on the shoulders of other commanders who had been at the battle. (Tellingly, no one suggested that clever tactics and leadership by the Indians might have been the cause for Custer's defeat.) Custer's widow, Elizabeth, also worked to transform her husband into a legend by writing several adulatory books chronicling his career. Hundreds of other books and movies, many of them more fiction than history, helped cement the image of Custer as the great fallen leader of the Indian wars in many American minds.

Custer's status as a national hero and martyr only began to be seriously questioned in the 1960s, and since then he has often been portrayed as a vain and glory-seeking man whose own ineptitude was all the explanation needed for the massacre at Little Big Horn. The truth about George Custer is probably somewhere in between these two extremes.

[King Shizzo]

Oct 11, 1975


Saturday Night Live debuts
   
 

On this day in 1975, Saturday Night Live (SNL), a topical comedy sketch show featuring Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman, makes its debut on NBC; it will go on to become the longest-running, highest-rated show on late-night television. The 90-minute program, which from its inception has been broadcast live from Studio 8H in the GE Building at Rockefeller Center, includes a different guest host and musical act each week. The opening sketch of each show ends with one actor saying, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”

Created by the Canadian-born comedy writer Lorne Michaels, SNL has introduced a long list of memorable characters and catchphrases—from Gilda Radner’s Roseanne Roseannada, to the Coneheads, to Billy Crystal’s Fernando (“You look mahvelous”), to Dana Carvey’s Church Lady (“Isn’t that special?”), to bodybuilders Hans and Franz (“We’re going to pump you up”), to Coffee Talk host Linda Richman (“like buttah” and “I’m all verklempt”)—that have become part of pop-culture history. The show, whose cast has changed continually over the years, has also launched the careers of such performers as Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, David Spade, Jon Lovitz, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tina Fey. Some SNL sketches have even been turned into feature films, the two most successful examples being 1980’s The Blues Brothers and 1992’s Wayne’s World.

The show was originally known as NBC’s Saturday Night because there was another show on ABC called Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. However, NBC eventually purchased the naming rights, and since 1977 the edgy comedy program has been called Saturday Night Live. Lorne Michaels served as the show’s producer from 1975 to 1980, followed by Jean Doumanian from 1980 to 1981. Dick Ebersol helmed the show from 1981 to 1985. Michaels returned to the program that year, and has remained executive producer ever since.

The influential comedian George Carlin hosted the debut episode of SNL. Later that year, Candace Bergen became the first woman to assume SNL hosting duties. She went on to host the program four more times. In 1982, seven-year-old Drew Barrymore hosted the show, becoming the youngest person ever to do so. Starting in 1976, Steve Martin has hosted SNL 14 times. Since 1990, Alec Baldwin has hosted the show 13 times. John Goodman has hosted the show a dozen times, beginning in 1989. Other frequent guest hosts include Buck Henry, Chevy Chase, Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken. Musical guests who’ve performed on SNL five or more times include Paul Simon, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, James Taylor, Sting, Beck and the Foo Fighters.

SNL is known for its topical parodies and impersonations, and for pushing boundaries with its sketches. The show is also recognized for its political humor. Chevy Chase famously portrayed President Gerald Ford as a klutz, while Dana Carvey spoofed President George H.W. Bush and his “read my lips” line. More recently, Amy Poehler has played Senator Hillary Clinton in numerous skits (including one with the senator herself) and Tina Fey has portrayed the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.

[The Ugly]

Oct 11, 1975


Saturday Night Live debuts
    
 

On this day in 1975, Saturday Night Live (SNL), a topical comedy sketch show featuring Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman, makes its debut on NBC;

Shit, I still remember the day he died. Entertainment Tonight covered it, I think 1980. I was at home getting ready for my Karate lessons. I must have been in 6th grade. Wow.